So it's Easter for, we did it early, and naturally everyone wanted pictures. So I had to quickly scramble and run outside and setup a "studio" in my yard along my drive way near where everyone parked. Challenge accepted, spontaneous shoot with kids. Oh boy!

I wanted enough distance to the foliage in my yard to get a soft background, but not completely nuked, as I like the falling oak limbs, so I marked a spot for us all to pile onto. I metered the overall environment with the camera to be approximately -1 stop or so, and was happy at 1/200s, F3.5, ISO 50 for the ambient light. I setup my light as camera-right, because the morning sun was still East (which was camera-left still) to counter any shadows. I metered my main light to F2.8, a little under my set focal-ratio (F3.5) as I like to not shoot at full key exposure with lights for better blends. I decided to use a back light, which is not normal for me, because I wanted the girls' hair to really pop because it was windy. I metered it also at F2.8, but I should have metered it lower unfortunately, maybe F2 light or even lower. Live and learn there, it was too bright at the end of the day, but survivable on that mistake. I placed the hair/backlight to camera left to replace the traveling sun that would come and go through clouds & tree canopy.

Am recording some pendants made by a local artist. Stones are probably a flavor of feldspar and, due to the limited light angles that generate the iridescence, are a devilish challenge to photograph. Result first:

Despite the white b/g, I was going for a low-key treatment of the jewelry in order to bring attention to the scintillations. Since they change color and position as the viewing and keylight angles are altered, I had to pick something representative. The setup:

I used a single bare bulb behind Rosco Rolux panel for medium diffusion as the key coming from upper left. Using a panel allows tuning the key size which was important to generate the maximum iridescence without swamping the scene. Bare bulb also generated the ambient fill which was then shaped by the flag.

hammer418 wrote in post #18352321... However, being a bit of a rockhound, the stone appears to be a labradorite in my opinion.

Thank you! I defer to your expertise, but note that labradorite is a form of feldspar. The iridescence is full spectrum and really intense, especially on the reverse side of these stones, leading me to wonder if the mineral is spectrolite (a form of labradorite). What do you think?

'The success of the second-rate is deplorable in itself; but it is more deplorable in that it very often obscures the genuine masterpiece. If the crowd runs after the false, it must neglect the true.' —Arthur MachenWhy 'The Histogram' Sux

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